Managing Sleep is one core of recovery...
Primary insomnia, in which individuals have difficulty falling or staying asleep for a month or longer, is associated with daytime fatigue, mood disruption and cognitive impairment. Insomnia can also lead to depression and anxiety disorders.
White matter tracts are bundles of axons–or long fibers of nerve cells–that connect one part of the brain to another,” Li said. “If white matter tracts are impaired, communication between brain regions is disrupted.”
Results of the analysis showed that compared to the healthy controls, the insomnia patients had significantly reduced white matter integrity in several right-brain regions, and the thalamus which regulates consciousness, sleep and alertness.
“These impaired white matter tracts are mainly involved in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness, cognitive function and sensorimotor function,” Li said.
In addition, abnormalities in the thalamus and body corpus callosum–the largest white matter structure in the brain–were associated with the duration of patients’ insomnia and score on self-rating depression scale.
“The involvement of the thalamus in the pathology of insomnia is particularly critical, since the thalamus houses important constituents of the body’s biological clock,” she added.